Melt

by Heidi Wicks

  “Do you? Because I don’t think you do.” Jess thinks of her own mother, again, and how proud she was that Jess decided to be a teacher, just like she was, and her heart bleeds at how saddened her dying mother was about the state of education.

  “I can guarantee that intense consideration was put into this decision and we would not make these changes if we thought they would compromise our children.”

  “Well why is all-day kindergarten continuing?”

  “All-day kindergarten is the standard across the country, Linda.”

  Cait interjects, “Minister, I think when there are enough human resources in place, that model makes sense, but here teachers aren’t prepared for it. That’s what I’m hearing from teachers. Is that your perspective as a parent, Linda?” Cait and Jess had rehearsed this little sketch a week ago over wine.

  The minister has pulled out a sheet of paper to read the notes prepared for him.

  “There is no clear evidence in the research that shows any effect on educational outcomes for larger class sizes. Yes, larger class sizes will make more work for teachers, but there is no evidence that shows it compromises the outcomes.” The string of statistics squirts from between his lips.

  “Excuse me, Minister,” Cait interjects, “but how exactly can you say that outcomes won’t be compromised if the children get less attention?”

  Just last week, the principal had poked her head around Jess’s classroom door. “Sorry, Jessica, could I speak with you for a moment?” There’s a new student. Another new student.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Jess leaned on the wall, shifting her gaze between the students and the principal. “I just had two ESL kids come in here. Two autistic kids. One is still in diapers.”

  “This girl, her parents just transferred here. I think they’re starting a separation. But she’s well adjusted. Sweet girl, really.” The principal feels for her staff. A caring, compassionate woman, she does her best to take care of her teachers.

  The calls pour in. People who are angry. Heartbroken. Fearful for the future.

  Cait has just moved into a new house. She has to pay all the bills herself. Because of this, her child benefit will also be reduced. How will she make ends meet?

  Protestors stomp and yell outside. Sneer at Minister Baker long after he pulls away in his Escalade.

  Christine Day, the producer, meets Caitlyn in the porch after the show. “Can we sit for a moment?” They sit in the red leather chairs that flank the vintage radio close to where Beverly, the receptionist, used to sit.

  “They’re a good family, though. The parents get along; they’re reasonable with each other,” the principal wants to soften the blow as much as possible. “Not like some divorcing couples. They’re educated. Sensible.” She knows Jess is one of the best teachers on staff, and she’s spread thin.

  Jess exhales a sharp short breath. “Names?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this, Caitlyn.” Christine puts a hand on Cait’s shoulder. “We have to let you go.”

  “Their last name is Bohmer. Matthew and Grace are the parents. Their little girl is Savannah—sweetheart. She’s a perfect blend of both of them. Fifty-fifty split. Looks like an angel.”

  crunchy peanut butter

  2016

  Cait jerks a wonky cart out of the stack in the parking lot and pushes it back to the car, its wheels turned sideways, cantankerous to push.

  “I want the carrrr carrrt!” As Cait tries to lift Maisie from the car seat, Maisie whips backwards, causing Cait to thwack the back of her skull on the car door frame. She lets go of Maisie for a moment to stand up outside the car. She grits her teeth, sucks in air, clenches fists, releases, clenches, releases. Inhales, exhales, moving to the beat of the metronome in her head. The tick-tocks of intense love and extreme rage that whoosh within her, within seconds of each other when dealing with her child are always a shock.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know it’s disappointing that you want a car cart and there’s not one here. I wish there was one here too,” holy fuck, do I ever, thinks Cait to herself, “but we just have to use this one for now. Now, if you’re happy and use your listening ears, I’ll get you a treat in the store!”

  Maisie pauses, and perks up. Like magic. It blows Cait’s mind how, in the midst of mayhem, something enchanted can happen and in an instant she’s Mary Freakin’ Poppins.

  “What kind of treat?” Maisie’s tears hit pause. In other words, is this negotiation worth me not losing my shit? It’s obvious, even at five years old, that Maisie likes being in control. She comes by it honestly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you can even pick it out yourself!” Parenting is a constant chess match. Cait thinks if she wrote a mom blog, it’d be called: Using witchcraft to control your child.

  “Okay!”

  They roll into the supermarket with the wonky cart, and there, in all its power and glory, is a car cart, glowing, a pearl in a shell.

  Life really does move in waves. Anything can change at any time.

  “Mommy! Look!”

  “I see it! I see it!” They ditch the wonky cart, lease the car cart. And it rolls properly, sweet Jesus, it rolls like a Rolls Royce. Around the periphery of Sobeys:

  Strawberries. Bananas. Blackberries.

  “No, I don’t want bananas, Mommy. I don’t like bananas.” Well this is news.

  “Well, that’s okay, because these are for me.”

  Apples.

  French bread.

  Eggs.

  Milk, coffee cream, yogurt tubes.

  Centre aisles:

  Arrowroot biscuits.

  Fruit chews.

  Peanut butter.

  She picks up a tub of crunchy before slamming it back on the shelf, realizing it’s for Jake.

  At the check-out, Maisie chirps, “Choc-lat.” She always over-pronounces the last letter in a word.

  “Okay, that’s your treat that you pick? A chocolate bar?” Cait scans the rack to make sure there’s a very small Dairy Milk. Sugar does not bode well, especially in a child with Maisie-level gumption.

  “Yes! Choc-lat!” She hugs the bar to her chest, her tiny Chiclets for teeth, megawatt grin, and it’s a mom moment where Cait’s entire body aches love. It’s a Mary Poppins moment.

  From the corner of her eye, Cait spots a flash of blonde, shiny hair. A hot-pink athletic jacket.

  “My Stacey!” My Stacey? Maisie has spotted the same blonde-shiny-pink presence, and it’s attached to the head of her teacher at daycare. Cait flashes back to the disciplinary meeting. Stacey’s smug smile, her holier-than-though aura. Cait can feel the reverberations of blame from across their carts. Stacey’s allegiance to the male half of this split feels palpable and it pops in Cait’s jaws as would the package of Pop Rocks candy that’s perched underneath the copies of Hello! and People on the magazine rack.

  “Maisie! Hello, my doll!—Hi, Caitlyn.”

  My doll? Cait senses an awkwardness from Stacey that wasn’t present during the meeting.

  Stacey’s cart is, of course, filled with everything organic. She’s head-to-toe in Lululemon. Black leggings, the pink running jacket.

  “I got choc-lat.” Maisie boasts, proudly, hoisting her bar into the air.

  “Oh wow, you’re so lucky. You’ve got a bit of sugar there I see, with those fruit chews. Careful with that sugar! Don’t want the sugar bugs to eat holes through your teeth!” She holds her fingers up to her mouth like a beaver. She becomes aware of Cait’s glare suddenly and recoils. Catches herself.

  “Yes, well,” Cait interjects, “Maisie had a really good moment where she deserved a treat—she made a good choice. So there’s nothing wrong with a treat every now and then when you deserve it, right, Maisie?”

  “I made a good choice!” Maisie beams, and Cait basks in the moment, willing herself to pretend Stacey isn’t there, holding an invisible shield against her nervous-smug energy.

  “We sometimes don’t recommend food as rewards.�
� Stacey utters the words from the side of her mouth, in Caitlyn’s direction. Why is this woman still talking?

  Cait turns her body away from Maisie, who is currently kissing the chocolate bar wrapper. She faces Stacey directly. “I appreciate what you’re suggesting, Stacey, but we aren’t in school right now, and I will make the choices with my child, thank you. I don’t think a bit of chocolate every now and then is going to hurt.”

  Stacey recoils from Cait’s directness. “Sorry, yes of course.”

  “It’s okay.” Cait nods, smiles, politely but not warmly and not sincerely. She has a newfound sense of defensiveness towards Stacey and no logic tells her why.

  They put the last of the groceries into the bag, and start to wheel away, when at the last minute, Maisie reaches out in an attempt to grab more chocolate from the row of bars next to the cash register, and the whole row sweeps onto the floor. Her little face says, Oh shit.

  “Maisie!” Cait is wide-eyed at her daughter. “Why did you do that?”

  Sheepishly, “I didn’t do it,” Maisie’s hands shrug up with her shoulders, “hands did it.” She spreads her fingers wide, her Chicklet grin menacing, and Cait can’t help but crack a smile and turn her head in another direction, in Stacey’s direction, actually. She and Stacey catch looks, just for a second, and Stacey grins back. Cait immediately looks back to Maisie. “Bye, my Stacey!” Maisie waves fervently, her eyes wide, thinking about the bar.

  Back in the car, Maisie sits in her car seat as Cait drives, demolishing her Dairy Milk like a crow ripping into a garbage bag on the curb. “Stacey at Daddy’s house!”

  In the rearview mirror, her face is smeared with brown.

  “What did you say, sweetheart?” Stay cool, Cait, she keeps breathing.

  “Stacey was at Daddy’s house!”

  “Oh? What was she doing at Daddy’s house?” It feels like a lump of salt beef from her mother’s Sunday dinner is lodged in Cait’s throat. What in the fuck was Stacey doing at Daddy’s house?

  “Just…visiting.”

  Don’t ask her more about it, she tells herself. Keep it together. Ask Jake instead. Oh yes, ask Jake, you’re goddamned right ask Jake. Jab. “Penny Lane” is on the radio and Maisie belts it from the back seat.

  Cait pokes her headset into her ears. “Call. Jake.” She asks Siri to please dial.

  “Y-ellow!” Someone sounds chipper.

  “Maisie told me Stacey was at your house.” She hisses it into the phone, so Maisie can’t hear.

  Pause.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes. I heard you, Cait.”

  “So…I think I deserve to know why the daycare worker was at your house, with my child? Has something happened with Maisie that requires an at-home visit?”

  “…”

  “Jake. I’m sorry—is the phone cutting out here?”

  “Cait, you don’t need to know every detail of who I date.”

  Thwack. Sledgehammer to the heart.

  wind warning in the wrecked house

  2016

  Cait does what she’s supposed to do to break heartbreak:

  Exercises. Pounds around Quidi Vidi Lake. There’s still bits of cold, muddy slop plopped on the June ground, but by God, it’s poundable. Slappable. She blasts broken-heart anthems into her eardrums. Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” and the Pathological Lovers’ “Best Served” are on regular repeat. Her walks torrent into sprints that don’t slow until a new pain crushes the omnipresent heartache.

  Reads. Jane Austen. Joan Didion. Bronte. Great, sprawling books about hearts that have been shredded in meat grinders.

  Watches. Films about love gone blue. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Blue Valentine.

  Drinks. She lives Wine Wednesday and Mommy’s Sippy Cup and I Only Drink Coffee Until It’s Acceptable to Drink Wine culture in shame, behind closed doors.

  Maisies. They curl up. They read. Sing and dance to Raffi and Fred Penner: all the songs she sang as a child, when life was blissfully innocent.

  Today is relatively warm for June. She wears the same hiking boots she wore on her and Jake’s failed, save-the-marriage pilgrimage to Nicaragua last year.

  She’d tromped ahead of Jake on their volcano hikes. All he did was complain and cast a negative light on everything, which she resented.

  The guide tells them about the wildlife: “The baby vipers, they are much more dangerous than the adults. The adults, they know if their attacker wants to hurt them. If the threat appears unintentional they will give a small warning bite. But if they feel a true threat, they kill. Babies do not have the maturity to control themselves, so they just shoot out all their poison at once.”

  Driving through the country, their car careened around the edge of sharp cliffs, the road a thin ribbon. Cait gripped the door handle and swallowed her uncertainty and panic.

  “So tell me, Cait,” Jake gripped the steering wheel, “what is it that I do so wrong anyway?”

  “Why are we still talking about it? You don’t get it. The things you say hurt me, and you just don’t get it.”

  “I don’t mean that stuff. You take it to heart and you shouldn’t.”

  “Then why do you fucking say it if you know it hurts me? If someone says you hurt them, you don’t get to say you didn’t. You expect me to change my behaviour without considering your own and it makes me fucking sick.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be so fucking sensitive and defensive.”

  Re-calibrate. The robot voice on the GPS chirped. The lines on the screen moved into some pink dead zone with all roads gone. Directionless.

  “Bitch! This thing’s name is bitch for the rest of this trip.” Jake plunked his finger at the screen until it blinked stupidly back to life, after just having conked out from sheer exhaustion.

  Now her boots are soggy with spring sludge. Quidi Vidi Gut: mucky and wretched. She strides up a bank, heading towards Cuckold’s Cove, and slips onto her hands and knees. Scrapes her palms. Slaps off the mud and plows forward through the slop. Further up, she thwacks branches away from her face.

  After their heated, perilous drive, Cait and Jake finally pulled up in San Juan del Sur where the Christ of the Mercy statue greeted them. Welcome, children. Take solace in my loving arms.

  Hot, sweaty, ragged, they pulled up to the Airbnb, Cait’s foot propped on the glove compartment.

  Jake spied her thigh. “See, why don’t you just show leg more often?”

  Cait rolled her eyes.

  “Guys are idiots. All we want is sex and that calms us down.”

  “You really are an idiot.” She cracked a smile, despite herself. He made her laugh, and she’s a sucker for people who make her laugh. He’s her little girl’s daddy. He doesn’t mean to release all the venom. They dragged their bags inside. Elbowed each other out of the way, fighting for first dibs on the shower. She peeled away the sweaty sun dress and the stink of the car. She shoved past Jake, surrendering to the water’s cool trickle. She let him join her, his fingers feathering and tapping all over her body. Kisses. Little licks. On the neck, jawline, lips. Frustration, rinsed down the drain. But the doubt was still there, deep in her core.

  The wind swirls and coils and slaps her across the face. Freezes her cheeks. The furious gusts invade her nostrils, push their way down into her core, chilling her organs. The dampness in the air permeates through her pores, seems to lodge in her guts like the June patches of brown around Quidi Vidi Lake.

  A job, oh my God, she doesn’t have a job. Employment Insurance will only last forty-five weeks, if she’s lucky. Things look grim. How will she find work? There is no work. Things are only going to get worse over the next few years.

  When she was a child, her father constantly corrected her.

  “Stand up straight, don’t be rude, don’t forget to say the blessing, don’t forget to say your prayers.”

  Her father walks in a room and, instantly, she feels like nothing she does is good enough and
it makes her furious.

  Cait and Jake hike El Hoyo volcano, near Leon. The volcano dirt was dry and flaky and light, and it was hot as hell outside. The two-day trek culminated at the top of the volcano, leaving them staring at a giant crater of sulphur that steamed and stunk and God knows when it’d just explode.

  “Wow, look at that.” Cait stood, sweaty and muddy, her hands on her hips, and she inhaled the rotten-egg smell. “What’s down there?” she said it to herself. The gaping hole of nothing and everything—so dark and mysterious and volatile. The ground they stood on seemed to rumble.

  Their tents, neon orange and green and turquoise, were pops of colour, like Nerd candies amongst the dry brown grass. Pitched just down over the hill from the crater, they were vulnerable. At any point, they could have been guzzled up, melted with molten lava. What the fuck was she doing there, anyway?

  “What’re you staring at?” Jake marched up behind her, gnawing on a protein bar.

  Cait glared at him. “I’m staring at the grass, Jake.” She looked back at the crater.

  “Come on now, Cait, the name bitch is reserved for the GPS on this trip.” He chomped on the bar and poked her in the ribs and she wished he’d just fuck off and let her have this moment. Go away. She closed her eyes and pretended he had melted away, leaving just her and the smell of sulphur and toasting skin. She cranked her neck to the side and rested her ear on her shoulder. Turned her head forwards a little, so she can smell her skin. The smell of toasting skin, for a person who’s sun-deprived, is one of life’s smallest and most fulfilling and most exotic pleasures. She stayed there, in that position, until she heard Jake turn and walk away from her, crunching the dry grass under his hiking boots. Her relief quickly turned to regret as she imagined the sinking disappointment in his gut. He was doing his best, and she knew it.

  She could go home after she gets to the top of Kenna’s Hill, but she wants to keep walking. She loops back down through the cemetery, back towards Quidi Vidi Lake, and pounds the pavement back towards the gut. She blasts past Linda’s Inn of Olde. Towards The Plantation. On towards Cuckold’s Cove. The bank is wet—wet like the bank that went down to the river in Outer Cover, where they used to drink in high school. Cait was so brazen. She’d go down to the river, drink Labatt Blue Star, make out with Chad. Any thoughts of her father’s bullshit would get pushed right the fuck away. Gonzo. She’d grab Chad’s ass and yank him towards her. Get lost in his deep, soft kisses. Swoop through a vortex, a black hole, leaving this universe and entering another. It was like jumping into a volcanic crater and landing in a pool of fiction.